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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25751797">Of Silk and Memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices'>vega_voices</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You Are Like That, [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Voyager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Barge of the Dead, F/M, Family History, Fractured family, Klingon history, discovering oneself, i can't believe no one has linked L'Rell and B'Elanna yet, i'm not done with this, working through depression</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:00:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25751797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Weren’t religious awakenings supposed to cure everything? Weren’t they supposed to create peace and not more questions? What was it Tom had called her? A Born Again Klingon? Hell and Gre’thor, he wasn’t wrong. Gods, she wanted him to be.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>You Are Like That, [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Of Silk and Memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>Title:</b> Of Silk and Memory<br/>
<b>Author:</b> vegawriters<br/>
<b>Fandom:</b> Star Trek: Voyager; hints of Star Trek: Discovery<br/>
<b>Series:</b> You Are Like That,<br/>
<b>Pairing:</b> B’Elanna Torres/Tom Paris<br/>
<b>Rating:</b> M<br/>
<b>Timeframe:</b> Barge of the Dead (S 6, E 3)<br/>
<b>A/N:</b> I can’t believe that no one has linked L’Rell to B’Elanna yet …<br/>
<b>Disclaimer:</b> Star Trek is owned and operated and managed by the Powers that Be. This is for fun. Until they hire me of course. ;)  Poetry by Tess Gallagher. You can purchase her work here: <a href="https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=tess+gallagher">https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=tess+gallagher</a></p><p><b>Summary:</b> <i>Weren’t religious awakenings supposed to cure everything? Weren’t they supposed to create peace and not more questions? What was it Tom had called her? A Born Again Klingon? Hell and Gre’thor, he wasn’t wrong. Gods, she wanted him to be.</i></p><p>
  <a id="cutid1" name="cutid1"></a>
</p><p><i>Hadn’t I done well enough with the life<br/>
I’d seized, sure as a cat with<br/>
its mouthful of bird, bird with its<br/>
belly full of worm, worm like an acrobat of darkness<br/>
keeping its moist nose to the earth, soaring<br/>
perpetually into darkness without so much as<br/>
the obvious question: why all this darkness?<br/>
And even in the belly of the bird: </i>why<br/>
only darkness?<br/>
<i>From: My Unopened Life by Tess Gallagher</i></p><p> </p><p>Well. Now what?</p><p>She’d lit the candles and faced her demons. She’d tossed the bat'leth into the sea. She’d hugged her mother and shouted in Klingon and come face to face with the harsh reality that no, she wasn’t allowing herself any kind of happiness. She’d made a life for herself, but this ship hadn’t fit the story she’d planned. Then again, nothing actually did. Nothing had prepared her for her father leaving, for her mother sending her away, for the Academy not being what she needed, to be ripped into the Delta Quadrant.</p><p>But nothing had prepared her for her friendship with Chakotay, for Janeway’s belief in her, for her love of a temperamental warp core. Nothing could have ever prepared her for Tom.</p><p>So, now what? How did she accept that this life wasn’t anything she had to fight?</p><p>Weren’t religious awakenings supposed to cure everything? Weren’t they supposed to create peace and not more questions? What was it Tom had called her? A Born Again Klingon? Hell and Gre’thor, he wasn’t wrong. Gods, she wanted him to be. But before she’d let the doctor almost kill her, Tom had kissed her and promised that the next time, he’d go with her. He’d help her. Her sweet, Tom, who never quite fit in anywhere either, he was willing to storm down the path with her, stumbling over roots and rocks, and facing down the monsters of Klingon sagas. Truth was, he was better with a bat’leth than she was. It was humiliating.</p><p>So here she was, sitting on her bed, staring at the stars zooming past. Next to her, Tom slept and she wanted him to. He had an early morning on the bridge and a shift in sick bay and she knew he had some alone-time planned with the Delta Flyer. Talk about a religion. She joked that he loved that ship more than he loved her, but, really, how often had she really opened up and let him in? And maybe, just maybe, she was still cautious about the Flyer and how she’d completely disconnected herself from the entire creation of the ship. He’d been right - it was their dream to create ships together and she’d sleepwalked through the whole thing and almost killed herself in the process. The Delta Flyer was his, not hers, definitely not theirs, and it showed.</p><p>Another glance at the man asleep next to her and her heart swelled. In what she thought would be a last, gasping breath, she’d told him she loved him. And she meant it. But now she didn’t know what to do with that love. Klingon displays of emotion always got her into trouble. Why was everything with her mother’s side of her DNA so damned demonstrative? Why did it always have to be an opera?<i> You always shut out the world, Bel, </i>Kreshi had said one night. <i>I don’t doubt you love me. I do doubt you want me to stick around. Why can’t you just say what’s actually rattling around that brain of yours?</i></p><p>B’Elanna wanted Tom to stick around. She wanted to survive this voyage home and figure out what to do next. But she just wasn’t sure how to start living this life she’d promised to live. Being capital-K Klingon had driven her father away. Being human never quite fit. And she really wasn’t sure she was made of the stuff to suddenly dive into Klingon ritual and lore, no matter how beautifully it could tell the story of the universe. But that was all it was, a story. Just another way of telling history. Did engineers really need gods?</p><p>Slowly, she got out of bed, moving carefully to avoid waking Tom. In the top drawer of her dresser was the satchel she’d rescued from the Val Jean before Voyager had become her life. So much hadn’t mattered, but this was always with her. This leather bag her mother had given her when she went off to the monastery on Boreth. A bag she never bothered with but it was with her at the monastery and the academy and here. Inside, were four items, three wrapped tenderly in ancient Klingon silk, one buried at the bottom, hoping to be forgotten.</p><p>The bag felt strange in her hands, the leather rough from years of neglect. B’Elanna settled on the couch and opened it, wincing at the crack that formed in the fold. Item number one in the morning, replicate some oil and a repair kit and fix this. Not only would her mother be insulted, but she was horrified. B’Elanna was horrified.</p><p>“B’Elanna?”</p><p>Damnit. She hadn’t wanted to wake him. But, she could see him stirring and so leaned over a bit so she was in eyeline of the bed. “Over here.”</p><p>The sheets rustled and she watched him get out of bed, running a hand through his tousled hair and smoothing his t-shirt down over his stomach. How long had it been since she’d moved her mouth down his abdomen, feeling his hand tighten in her hair as she took him into her mouth? Since she’d let the passion of her blood fire rise while he pulled her against him and pressed his teeth into her neck. How long had it been since their tumbles together had been sparked by anything other than the release after a stupid argument? This lover of hers, who asked for nothing but her heart in return for his devotion, was in so many ways Klingon as any in the myths that hovered forever at the edge of her consciousness and she should honor him as such. Instead, she held him at length, expecting him to be as disappointing as her own human side.  She just didn’t know how to do anything else and she could flip a switch and be willing to discover her Klingon side but that same switch didn’t mean she knew how to just start trusting overnight.</p><p>“What’s up?” he asked as he took a seat next to her on the couch. “Thought you’d be exhausted.”</p><p>“Physically, yeah,” she admitted. “But I’m not really … my mind is still awake and I didn’t want to toss and turn and keep you up.”</p><p>“So getting out of bed and leaving me cold works?”</p><p>For an instant she bristled at the teasing, but that was all it was, good natured teasing, meant to open the door for a deeper conversation. “I tried.”</p><p>“I know.” He rubbed the sleep from her eyes and nodded to the satchel. “What’s this?”</p><p>“It was my mother’s. She gave it to me when I …” and she stopped. She’d told Dream Tom about the monastery, not this Tom. Not her Tom. “When I was fifteen, my mother pulled me out of the Federation schools and sent me off to the Klingon monastery on Boreth. One of those places where you learn to be a true believer. She said it was time I learned how to be a Klingon and leave all the human stuff aside.” She fingered the aged leather of the strap, remembering the nuns who walked so silently, their ridge jewelry glittering in the candle light. The stone caverns where myths were handed down not just through story but battle. She’d always hated when they put the bat’leth into her hand and made her fight for her place in the class.</p><p>“So how’d you go from monastery to the Academy?”</p><p>“Ahh, now we’re at the root of the problem,” she said, trying to force a laugh. “See, Tom, the last time I talked to my mother … it was when I told her I was leaving the monastery and going to Starfleet. She’d worked so hard to drill out my humanity that I ran the other way and now I just … I don’t know what it all means right now.”</p><p>“So you’re up in the middle of the night, staring at a satchel?”</p><p>She nodded. “Yep.”</p><p>“What’s in it?”</p><p>“My grandmother’s mek’leth. My great-grandmother’s ridge jewels. A journal of my mother’s.”</p><p>“Wait, Klingons have ridge jewelry?”</p><p>The question broke down the last of her current set of walls and a gentle smile touched her lips as she reached into the bag to take out the ancient set of gold and jewels. Slowly, she unwrapped the silk, as astonished by it as Tom. Why wasn’t the artisanal skill of her people heralded in all of the galaxy’s lore? To read the basic literature, all Klingon weapons were just big, heavy metal swords. No one talked about the intricacies of the metal and leather work, the engraving on the blades. The silk in her hands was as vibrant as it had been the day it was dyed, over one hundred years ago. Unwrapping the jewels, B’Elanna focused on the story on the fabric, the fable before her. A woman, holding a bat’leth, bearing the crest of the Chancellor.</p><p>A woman? As chancellor? Where was that in her history?</p><p>Gently, she set the silk aside and held up the crown. This one, unlike the simple ones she’d been given over her childhood, she had never worn. She’d only ever looked at it once before, when she first arrived at the monastery. Sitting on her hard shelf of a bed in her cell of a room, she’d angrily pulled everything out of the bag. No good-bye letter from her mother, no promises to return if she needed it. Just these heirlooms that meant nothing to her. The nun who had shown her to her cell of a room had stopped her in the door, her eyes flashing as she gripped B’Elanna’s chin in her hand and forced her eyes to meet her. “You have the bearing of the Mother of our people, Daughter of Miral. You would be wise to listen and learn.” The mark on the crown was the ancient symbol for Mother.</p><p>It hadn’t made sense then and it still didn’t make sense, but at least now she wasn’t an angry child, wondering why any of this mattered. Just like then, she held the golden crown to the dim light, running her finger over the faded mark. “This was my great-grandmother’s,” she said, gently placing the jewelry to rest on her ridges. But the jewels were designed for better, stronger marks of the warrior and she worried it would fall off.</p><p>Tom, however, just stared at her. He crooked his finger under her chin and lifted her eyes to his. “You …” there were tears in his eyes. “B’Elanna …”</p><p>She wasn’t ready for this. She thought she had been but this was too much all at once and she reached up, grabbing the crown and putting it back in its silk wrapping and the bundle back in the satchel. She could feel Tom scoot back, giving her space and allowing her to lay the foundation for a brand new wall. God. She was so bad at this. “I’ve spent a lifetime running from the Klingon side of me,” she said. “And yeah, maybe I’m ready to start exploring it but let’s not run so fast … okay? I mean, if you want to see me in ridge jewelry, that’s easy enough and maybe one that isn’t older than dirt.”</p><p>He nodded and leaned in to kiss her. “Okay.”</p><p>The kiss could only be described as timid, so reminiscent of how they’d been with each other lately. Him tiptoeing around her temper, taking her detachment for lack of interest. But she’d been on the Barge of the Dead tonight and she’d survived the challenge. She’d faced death and demons and she was so tired of fighting. Kahless, she wanted to love. Humans had therapy and antidepressants. Klingons apparently had the barge to Gre'thor.</p><p>She felt like she was vibrating as she reached out and grabbed Tom’s shirt in her fist, pulling him closer. So close. His fingers tightened on her hips and she growled, taking his lip between her teeth and biting. He responded with his own guttural moan, pushing her back onto the couch, pinning her down, claiming her with a mark to her neck. Some tiny part of her mind threw up a red alert klaxon, suggesting that the roller coaster of emotions she’d been on over the past twenty-four hours might not be best culminated in a Klingon mating ritual that was sure to leave her needing a dermal regenerator, but she didn’t care. Right now, she wanted her body to feel like her soul did - alive and charged and terrified. So, when Tom’s knee pinned her down and his hands ripped her tank top down to reveal her breasts, she arched up to meet him.</p><p>Tom’s mouth made work of her while his hands pinned her in place. They both knew she was stronger than him, but desire for his control kept her in place. She needed this coaxed from her, ripped from her. He pulled back, taking her with him, and she followed him as he brought her to the bed. He stopped her before shoving her down, yanking her shirt from her body. She helped him slide her shorts down her legs. Turning, she sat and tugged his own shorts down, and Tom’s hands pulled her hair as she sank her lips onto him.</p><p>“Fuck, B’Elanna …” he groaned. That was exactly what she was doing. She worked him like she knew he liked, and made no secret of how she moved one of her own hands down to finger herself while she sucked him off. As he gasped her name, she flashed on Seven’s damn monitoring of her and Tom’s intimate relations. Well, now everyone in the section knew exactly what was going down. Good. This time they hadn’t been fighting.</p><p>He pulled her back, shaking his head at her. “Scoot back,” he ordered. She complied, spreading her legs for him, welcoming him as he covered her body with his and pushed his way inside of her. She cried out, struggling only slightly and for show when he pinned her hands above her head. His mouth returned to her neck and he thrust inside of her, and she wrapped her legs around him while he moved. This, this right here, this wasn’t about her pleasure but his, and she rode the wave while he used her body. God, she was so close.</p><p>Tom stilled and rose up, looking into her eyes. Beyond the deep blue of lust and passion, she could see how he felt, what he wanted, how he wanted her, and she shivered. Anything for him. Especially right now. He pulled away again and she whimpered as their bodies disengaged. And then he was taking her onto his lap, helping her adjust as she slid onto him, and he never lost eye contact while she rode him. At least until his hands tightened so hard on her hips that she cried out as he fell back, arching up into her body. B’Elanna balanced herself on him, fingering herself, watching him watch her.</p><p>“Say my name when you come,” he commanded. She trembled, and as her body released around him, she screamed his name.</p><p>Take that, deckmates.</p><p>Exhausted, she collapsed over him, her hair hanging in her face. “I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”</p><p>“We both needed it,” he said. “God, I’ve missed you. All of you.”</p><p>“I’d say I’ve been right here …” she rolled over to her side of the small bed, “but really, I haven’t, have I?”</p><p>“That’s a conversation for coffee,” he suggested.</p><p>“Fair.” B’Elanna stretched and sat up. “Why don’t you join me in the sonic shower and then we can both get a couple of hours sleep.”</p><p>“It’s a plan,” he said, following her into the head. Within ten minutes, they were back in bed, and this time, both of them slept on.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Tom had long since left for his 0600 shift, after a second sonic shower and a gentle kiss to the bruise she left on his neck. In the dawn of morning - whatever that meant for starship life - B’Elanna had time to overthink.</p><p>They hadn’t had their much needed conversation over coffee. Instead, they’d tumbled into each other again, making him late, and she rushed him out the door, promising time together whenever the ship granted them a moment of peace. How was it that they lived in the same space, worked only a few decks from each other, and somehow never had time to simply talk?</p><p>She wasn’t due in engineering for at least an hour, and for once the ship was doing what it needed to do. Ion storms and solar flares and whatnot be damned, Voyager was just fine. So here she was, sipping a cooling raktajino and staring at her mother’s unopened journal.</p><p>She didn’t have to do this whole conversion to Klingon culture overnight, did she? She was still allowed to be scared about what it all represented, right? Maybe she’d just learn how to fight properly with a bat’leth before she did anything else. Maybe her mother’s journal could wait. Maybe she was still running from the shadows of a life she’d never dared herself to understand and she didn’t need to rip open every scar right at the same time.</p><p>There weren’t many “mongrels” like her. A few scattered through the quadrant. The most famous being K'ehleyr, the mate of Worf, who had been murdered simply for doing her job. This was what Klingon culture was to give her? The promise of a political discourse that always ended at the tip of a knife? Why the hell was she supposed to embrace this?</p><p>She was an engineer, not a warrior. She didn’t want to be a warrior. She didn’t want to solve all her problems with a blade. And yet, here she was, every day, fighting with herself and the world around her. For someone who was tired of fighting, she sure as hell seemed to like the process.</p><p>Another sip of the raktigino and she reached for the journal. Setting the leather on her lap, B’Elanna offered her eyes upward in a prayer to Gods she still wasn’t sure it was worth believing in, and opened the cover.</p><p>
  <i>May 1, 2349</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Today, I welcome my Warrior to my life. By L’Rell’s blessing, may B’Elanna’s passion rage.</i>
</p><p>Oh. Great. This wasn’t just one of her mother’s journals. It was a damn baby book. Now she really wasn’t sure if she was ready for this. Quickly, she snapped the cover shut and wrapped it up again. Her time on the Barge hadn’t been about adopting everything Klingon. Her time had been about honoring herself, her choices, the man she loved, the job she had found. Her time was about no longer fighting the world’s expectations and just coming into her own with herself. Right now, that was more important than this journey, no matter how much it felt like the next expected step. But, wasn’t that what she was always fighting? Her expected steps?</p><p>With a sigh, she wrapped the journal again in silk and put it and the satchel back into the dresser, pushing back the long-repressed memory of her time at the monastery, standing at the Pillar of the Past, staring toward a future she was not supposed to yet comprehend. Turning away, she picked up a PADD and tapped the communications icon.</p><p>“Hi Mom,” she said, her voice wavering. “I … I don’t know if you’re ever going to get this or if you’ve been told I’m alive … I mean, at the end of the vision with the Barge, you promised you’d see me again when I got home but I’m still not sure if you’re alive or not. They might have tracked dad down but he …” she stopped. Took a breath. “Let me start again. Hi, Mom. It’s me. Coming to you from the other side of the galaxy. I’m out here in the Delta Quadrant, actually. Wearing a Starfleet uniform, but it isn’t really by choice. See, this crazy thing happened … and now I ... maybe I’ll send more of these someday. If I can ever even send this one. But … I’m okay. I promise. And that Klingon stuff? It isn’t so strange to me anymore. Maybe by the time I see you, I’ll actually have something to say that matters about it. But, I’m okay. In fact … Mom … I think I might actually be happy.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Voyager had spent ten hours getting B’Elanna back for not getting to engineering early. She’d spent most of the day on her back under six different consoles that had all blown out at exactly the same time for no apparent reason. But even so, as she made her way down the corridor, she knew she had to do this now or she never would.</p><p>So, with a shaking hand, B’Elanna pressed the comm button on the Captain’s ready room. The doors slid open in time with Janeway’s command to enter, and B’Elanna poked her head in, PADD in hand. Pretenses for meeting with people were always a good ice breaker and although she could have just downloaded the report and sent it to the Captain for review, this gave her an excuse. “Here’s today’s damage report.”</p><p>“Oh, thank you, B’Elanna.” Janeway was at her desk, her eyes glued to the computer screen. A quick glance told her that she was neck deep in maps and star charts and maybe this wasn’t the best time to interrupt her. So she put the PADD on the desk and stepped back, ready to run. But she stopped, prodding herself with a mental painstik. She could do this. Janeway glanced up at her, her blue eyes distant and clearly on the work she’d been doing. “Is there anything else?”</p><p>“I …” she took a breath. “I was wondering if you had a minute, Captain?” Was that her voice? So scared and plaintive? This was her? How embarrassing.</p><p>The look in Janeway’s eyes changed and the tension in her shoulders softened. She nodded and stood up, walking over to the couch. “Some coffee?” She leaned down to the ever present coffee pot.</p><p>“Thank you …” B’Elanna walked over and took the offered cup. Janeway gestured to the couch and she took a cautious seat. “I just … I wanted to thank you for allowing me to go through the ritual. I know everything came out of nowhere and for all you knew, it was head trauma …”</p><p>“Or a continuation of your issues with self-harm?”</p><p>Well, the captain never had been a subtle woman.</p><p>“I know Tom was worried about that,” B’Elanna confessed. “I want you to know I was never suicidal. Not then and not this time. I just …” she took a sip of the coffee and savored the subtle flavors on her tongue. This was not one of Neelix’s blends. This was a carefully replicated and crafted brew, with hints of hazelnut and chocolate and even a touch of cherry. “It’s hard to explain.”</p><p>She expected the Captain to change the subject, to just ask about engineering or something. Instead, she leaned forward, staring into her own cup of coffee. After a long moment, she spoke. “I feel like I should have seen the signs sooner,” Janeway said. “Maybe I ignored them because I battle my own demons as well.”</p><p>“Captain?”</p><p>She glanced at her and offered a sad smile. “My father was a Vice Admiral. He served with distinction and I wanted to be just like him. My hero worship of him could almost be considered a religion. When he died, I fell apart. It was like every molecule in my body shattered at once and I had no concept of what it meant to put myself back together again. So I took a leave of absence and I went to bed and I didn’t leave it for months. I stopped eating, I had to be forced even into the sonic shower.”</p><p>B’Elanna’s eyes widened, but with this confession, what had happened with they entered the void made so much sense. The captain’s single minded devotion to staying disconnected, to keeping people at arm’s length. Were they really so different after all? “I’m sorry,” felt so inadequate of a response, even as she was saying it. So she took another sip of her coffee.</p><p>“My biggest regret right now is not having a counselor on board. We were supposed to pick her up from Rigel IV after the mission to secure Tuvok. I think we could all use one.” Her voice was so distant. B’Elanna nodded, still unsure of how to comment. Janeway took another sip of coffee. “I’ll give you all the leeway you need, B’Elanna. You can explore your Klingon side, your human side. You can jump off cliffs to make your heart race again. Just don’t let it interfere with your duties, and don’t hide behind the ritual. What you really need to do is take that ritual into the real world and learn how to live again. Exploring spirituality can only do so much.”</p><p>The coffee was a good distraction and B’Elanna took another sip, using the time to search for her response. “Thank you,” was all she could say. “And I don’t know what this all means for me. I do know that I’m most alive when I’m figuring out some problem in engineering. I always have been.”</p><p>Janeway smiled. “Same, actually. Give me the scientific method and a notebook and I’ll keep myself happy for days.” She took another sip of her coffee. “You’re a brilliant engineer, B’Elanna. Probably the best one I’ve ever come across in my career. Look at what you’ve accomplished here over the last few years. You’ve changed the very nature of propulsion, you’ve come to understand Borg and 29th century technology … you’ve kept this ship together. You’ve built us a home, B’Elanna. I hope you understand that. You aren’t just keeping the warp core alive. You’re keeping the power conduits clear. You’re providing power to the holodecks. You’re rebuilding shuttle engines and adapting technology to work with what we find out here. We wouldn’t be here without you.”</p><p>The words hit so hard that B’Elanna had to put down the coffee and pace to the desk. “Thank you,” she said again. What response was sufficient after a compliment like that? “I didn’t … I never really put it together like that.” She turned and stared at the stars shimmering through the faint bubble of the warp field.</p><p>“We don’t always agree, no. Sometimes, I want to just knock your head into a bulkhead and hope you wake up with some sense. But, when I take a breath, you’re usually right.” Silence fell for a moment, but B’Elanna didn’t say anything. She could feel the Captain building to something. So she waited. “I have a confession to make,” Janeway finally said.</p><p>“Oh?” Here it was.</p><p>“I did some digging on your family after all of this.”</p><p>Okay. This wasn’t a confession. “I know you’ve seen all of our files. Anything Starfleet had on me, you’d seen.”</p><p>“No. I’m not talking about your cut and dried Starfleet intelligence file. I’m talking about your family.”</p><p>Oh, okay. That was a confession then. B’Elanna’s mind flashed to the journal in her quarters, the crown wrapped in silk, the mek’leth, the satchel, the fragment of crystal. The nun at Boreth. “I’ll be honest,” B’Elanna said, trying to calm the quiver in her voice, “I don’t know that much. My mom’s efforts to tell me things never got through and my dad … well. All I really remember is my grandmother’s banana pancakes.” Kahless, she sounded pathetic. Did she ask what the Captain uncovered? What secrets awaited her?</p><p>“Honestly, there isn’t a lot. I found some genealogical and census records dating back a couple of generations but it stops. I wasn’t sure why.”</p><p>“And you were hoping I had the dirt?” B’Elanna cringed at how defensive she sounded.</p><p>“Well,” Janeway chuckled. “Yeah.”</p><p>Bringing her guard down, B’Elanna walked back over. “I don’t have any history for you.” She paused. “Not … right now. But I might. And when I do, I’ll share it with you.” Janeway smiled, bright and open and B’Elanna found herself trapped in the enthusiasm. Scared at the openness, she backed off a bit. “I should let you get back to work.”</p><p>Janeway nodded and B’Elanna was grateful for the Captain’s ever present need to be on task most of the time. For herself, she had a book waiting for her in her quarters. As she turned to take her leave, Janeway’s voice stopped her. “B’Elanna … one last thing?”</p><p>“Yes, Captain?”</p><p>“I know that one of the things you run from, that you don’t like, is how brutal and violent you worry your Klingon side is. Everything is ritual this and bat'leth that.” She was annoyed at the presumption but, the Captain wasn’t wrong. So she nodded and waited. “Remember something, while you are exploring your Klingon side.”</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“Don’t let your human side off the hook. We’re pretty ritualistic and brutal as well. And we don’t have as many epic drinking songs  to celebrate it. There’s something … very noble … about a culture that doesn’t shy away from those baser instincts that we all possess.”</p><p>B’Elanna let out a breath and smiled at the Captain. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Dismissed.”</p><p>“I’ll see you tomorrow.” B’Elanna made her way back to her quarters, lost in the Captain’s words about her family tree kind of vanishing after a couple of generations. She unlocked her door, stepped inside, and moved to the couch to unzip her boots and shrug off her uniform jacket. On the coffee table was a fresh vase of roses from Tom, along with a note - <i>I’ll miss you today. Breakfast at 0700? Coffee’s on me. I love you.</i> When had he had time for this? She leaned in, inhaled the scents from the roses - definitely not replicated - and went to change.</p><p>Clad in her favorite nightgown (and hoping really that Tom might steal away for at least an hour), B’Elanna sat on her bed, and reached for her body oil, taking the time to run her fingertips across the ridges on her feet. Slowly, she massaged the oil into her skin, feeling the blood flow change in her body. Her mother had always said Klingons could feel the universe in their feet - it was why they were such strong warriors. They always knew where to step. B’Elanna had never paid much attention. Flexing her toes, she watched the ridges tighten with her movements, put her feet on the floor and pressed the balls of her feet into the deck plating. Was it her imagination that she could feel the vibrations of the ship differently?</p><p>She made her way to her mirror and opened the jar of oil for her hair. She’d always straightened out the curls and waves, and now into adulthood she wasn’t sure if she just liked her hair straight or if she’d been trying to erase the Klingon curl. Lately, she’d been letting the waves loose and she had to admit, she didn’t hate the look. Gently, she massaged the oil into her scalp, taking time to work it into dry spots along her hairline. It wasn’t long enough to clasp back, but she pinned it up, out of her face, and stared for a long time at her ridges. What had Tom seen when she’d put on the jewelry last night? He’d been so shaken.</p><p>Her internal voice told her to go get the crown, to put it on, but she’d just oiled her hair and she wasn’t risking that kind of damage. So instead she used up half a replicator ration on a bowl of frozen peaches and settled onto her couch, intending to finish the romance novel she’d been ignoring for days. Instead, her eyes settled on the satchel, the dry leather, and she knew what she had to do. “Computer,” B’Elanna said, dedicating the replicator to create the kit she needed. And in the silence, with the stars flying by, B’Elanna sat on the floor of her quarters, her back against her couch, and worked to repair the satchel.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My Unopened Life</p><p>lay to the right of my plate<br/>like a spoon squiring a knife, waiting<br/>patiently for soup or the short destiny<br/>of dessert at the eternal picnic-unsheltered<br/>picnic at the mouth of the sea<br/>that dares everything forgotten to huddle<br/>at the periphery of a checked cloth spread<br/>under the shadowy, gnarled penumbra<br/>of the madrona.</p><p>Hadn’t I done well enough with the life<br/>I’d seized, sure as a cat with<br/>its mouthful of bird, bird with its<br/>bell full of worms, worm like an acrobat of darkness<br/>keeping its moist nose to the earth, soaring<br/>perpetually into darkness without so much as<br/>the obvious question: why all this darkness?<br/>And even in the bell of the bird: <i>why<br/>only darkness?</i></p><p>The bowl of the spoon<br/>collects entire rooms just lying there next<br/>to the knife. It makes brief forays into<br/>the mouth delivering cargoes of ceilings<br/>and convex portraits of teeth<br/>posing as stalactites of<br/>a serially extinguished cave</p><p>from whence we do nothing but stare out<br/>at the sea collecting little cave-ins of<br/>perception sketched on the moment<br/>to make more tender the house of the suicide<br/>in which everything was so exactly<br/>where it had been left by someone missing.<br/>Nothing, not even the spoon he abandoned<br/>near the tea cup, could be moved without<br/>seemingly altering the delicious<br/>universe of his intention.</p><p>So are we each lit briefly by engulfments<br/>of space like the worm in the beak of<br/>the bird, yielding to sudden corridors<br/>of light-into-light, never asking: <i>why<br/>tell me why<br/>all this light?</i></p><p>By: Tess Gallagher</p></blockquote></div></div>
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